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Navy raises CoSC ceiling; will possibly extend contract by 5 months

The Navy said Feb. 20 it will increase the maximum value of its Continuity-of-Service Contract with HP Enterprise Services for the management of its shoreside network by another $1.2 billion and possibly extend the contract's length through September 2014.

The action, announced through a special notice on FedBizOps, brings the maximum value of the CoSC contract to $6.1 billion. The Navy needs an increased ceiling whether or not it extends CoSC's duration, since it will hit the current ceiling of $4.9 billion this September, before CoSC's current end date of April 30, 2014.

CoSC was originally meant to be a short-term sole-source placeholder permitting incumbent network and seat management provider HP Enterprise Services (EDS prior to a merger) to keep the lights on while the Navy transitioned from its 10 year Navy/Marine Corps Intranet contract to the Next Generation Enterprise Network contract. NGEN has undergone a series of delays, however, the most recent being a postponement of the award date to May, rather than Feb. 12, as previously announced. CoSC came into effect in July 2010.

Ed Austin, public affairs officer for the program office overseeing the NGEN acquisition, said he didn't have a breakdown on how much of the $1.2 billion increase in the CoSC ceiling the Navy will need to just keep CoSC going through April 2014, but he said the $1.2 billion would be sufficient to cover its potential 5 month extension through September 2014.

Whether or not to extend the duration will depend on whether the transition to NGEN will be delayed, the Navy said in a statement (.pdf). The Government Accountability Office in a September report cast doubt on the Navy's ability to make a full transition to NGEN by the end of April 2014.

For more:
- go to the CoSC special notice on FBO
- download the Navy statement (.pdf)

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